secret-santa

A simple script that automates matching and emailing for the Secret Santa holiday event. It takes a list of participants and for each santa participant will pair them with a giftee, notifying all participants of their match.

• santas.txt: list of participants by email and name.
• email_template.txt: the message that is sent to each participant.
  • The email signoff name can be set inside the docker-compose.yml.
• Credentials for the mailing account will need to be set.

Prerequisites

• Install Docker: https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/install/
• A gmail account with permissions to send messages remotely.

Setup

1. Clone the repo.
2. Set local environment secrets for the email account that will be sending the event emails.
   1. Open ~/.profile for edit.
   2. Add SANTA_MAILER_ACCOUNT_EMAIL to ~/.profile:
      • export SANTA_MAILER_ACCOUNT_EMAIL=<mailer_email_address>
   3. Replace <mailer_email_address> with the email address that will be sending the event emails.
   4. Add SANTA_MAILER_ACCOUNT_TOKEN to ~/.profile:
      • export SANTA_MAILER_ACCOUNT_TOKEN=<mailer_app_token>
   5. Replace <mailer_app_token> with the password token for the email account.
3. Reload profile to apply new env variables: source ~/.profile
4. Open docker-compose.yml.
5. Find SANTA_EMAIL_SIGNOFF_NAME under the environment section.
6. Set the signoff name that will be used in the event emails by replacing <signoff_name>.
   • e.g. SANTA_EMAIL_SIGNOFF_NAME=Christopher
7. Save docker-compose.yml.
8. Open santas.txt.
9. Add the email addresses and names of all participants starting at line 2 (under the file header).
   1. Remove the placeholder email examples at line 2 and line 3.
   2. Add an email address, a space, then a name for the participant on one line.
   3. Repeat on a new line for every participant until all event participants have been added to the santas.txt file.
10. Save santas.txt.

Run it!

1. docker-compose run --rm secret-santa